1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a home network system and, more particularly, to methods for configuring sessions in a home network system and setting up optimized paths of the configured sessions and apparatuses for supporting the same.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
The present invention relates to an HDBaseT (High Definition Base T) technology. An extensive number of cables are required for using television receivers (TVs), personal computers (PCs), and audio systems that are presently most frequently used in households and offices.
Among the HD (High Definition) transmission cable technologies that are presently most widely used, some of the technologies are limited in the transmission rate and also limited in the transmission capacity. Therefore, such limitation leads to a problem of not being capable of processing contents at a fast rate, wherein the size of the contents is constantly increasing. Also, since the current HD transmission technology does not support uncompressed video, it is difficult to connect multiple video devices to one another in case the devices are spaced apart from one another at a distance of a few meters. Furthermore, it is also difficult to provide HD multimedia integrated contents throughout the entire household and/or office.
Additionally, since HD TV cables, audio cables, video cables, Internet LAN cable, power supply cables, and so on are separately provided for each of the conventional electrical devices, there lies a problem in that the wiring (or lining) is complicated and does not provide a pleasant appearance.
Among the cables that are currently used, the HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) cable is most widely used. Since the HDMI cable uses an uncompressed transmission method, the equipment of a decoder or a decoding software, which corresponds to the compression domain (or area), is not required. Furthermore, in case of using the HDMI technology, since signals, such as video signals, audio signals, and/or control signals, may be transmitted through a single cable by using a format integrated to a single digital interface, the HDMI technology is advantageous in that the complex wiring [or lining] for connecting the conventional AV (Audio/Video) devices can be simplified.
However, the HDMI technology is disadvantageous in that only uni-directional (or one-way) services from a multimedia source device to a display device are available, and that only a maximum cable length of 15 meters can be supported. Furthermore, when using the HDMI technology, it is difficult to efficiently support an environment where a plurality of multimedia sources is supported simultaneously. For example, since the HDMI technology is incapable of supporting USB, networking, a Daisy Chain method of a serial connection method, and so on, there are limitations in the adoption (or usage) of the HDMI technology.